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Welcome to Elementary Japanese I. This course is designed for students who have never studied Japanese before.
Getting Started
Syllabus and Course Portal
The first thing you need to do is to check this Syllabus. It discusses the course objectives, requirements, grading policies, and so on. The Syllabus can be accessed from the home page of T-Square (http://t-square.gatech.edu/). Click on "Resources" under COURSE TOOLS.
The Course Portal link (also on T-Square's Resources page) shows the ultimate schedule for this course. Each time you log in to this course on T-Square, you must always check the Course Portal . It shows the links the content materials and the timeline for specific activities, deadlines for homework, tests and exams. If you are lost as to what to do next, always refer to the Course Portal.
Course Descriptions
Credit Hours 4 credits (Those who registered via DLPE cannot receive academic credits.) Prerequisites None Course Objectives To develop culturally appropriate basic communication skills in both spoken and written Japanese, to gain an understanding of the basic structure of the Japanese language, and to begin developing an understanding of Japanese culture. At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- greet in Japanese, introduce themselves and respond to introductions, and engage in brief conversations in Japanese
- ask and answer questions about phone numbers and time/schedule
- describe objects and people, daily activities (present, and future)
- ask and answer questions about locations of objects and people
- master two of the writing systems (hiragana, katakana) and 26 kanji
- compare and contrast some features of Japanese culture with those of the culture of the United States
Learning Content Most content materials are provided on T-Square including the textbook. There are a total of six (6) lessons. Each lesson has topics, model dialogues, grammar notes, self tests, homework and classroom session scripts. There may be additional handouts in class. Classroom component There will be four (4) classroom periods (50 minutes each) every week. Individual work component Students are expected to work on the content materials individually and complete homework outside of classroom and spend at least 3 hours a week in doing so. Homework Most homework requires handwritten answers. They are all due in class on the day indicated on the course portal. Some homework questions may require you to read ahead the textbook before it is formally introduced in class.
Tests and Exams There will be hiragana and katakana quizzes, kanji quizzes, chapter tests and final exams. These tests and exams must be taken at a designated location on campus. If needed, vocabulary quizzes may also be administered.
Plan your activities
Successful foreign language learning should be an ongoing, steady, and cumulative process. It is always more effective to work a little at a time, step by step, every day. We recommend that you distribute your study time over the week. All students who take this course should establish a study routine and follow it with tenacity. Make sure that no day passes without studying at least one hour of Japanese.
Practice and review assignments
The study of a foreign language is quite different from that of subjects like history, geography and math, in the sense that you are expected to use what you learn right away to communicate. Mistakes can fossilize very quickly, so it is very important that everything be learned correctly from the beginning. Make sure that you listen to the audio carefully and that you keep repeating until you sound like the model. The reviewing of already learned material is of great importance and must not be neglected. Every study session should include a brief review of what has been covered last time.
How to communicate with your instructors and classmates
If there is an urgent message from the instructor, it will be posted on T-Square as Announcements. As a personal mode of communication with your instructor, use email. IMPORTANT: There are over 100 students in five different sections. Some students have similar names! When writing to your instructor, write your FULL NAME, the course title (JAPN 1001) and the SECTION (A, B, C, etc.) you have enrolled in.
If you are required to upload some homework files to T-Square's Drop Box, do not use Email Notification option (called "High Notification") of T-Square. (Doing so will result in flooding your instructor's email effectively making it impossible to review them all.) If you are required to upload something to your Drop Box, your instructors will look at your Drop Box anyway regardless of your notification. (Don't upload your homework to T-Square unless you are required or have prior permission to do so.) After you upload the file, it's your responsibility to make sure you can download it and open it again without any problems. If you can't download your own homework correctly (Use "Save the link as" option), your instructor cannot do so either. If your instructor cannot download the files correctly due to mishandled uploading, your homeowork may not be recorded as "submitted in time". (You cannot use technical difficulty as an excuse for being late in submitting your homework.)
If you are required to submit hardcopies of your homework and cannot do so due to valid reasons, you need to receive permission to upload your homework to T-Square's Drop Box BEFORE doing so and NOTIFY all the instructors that you have done so (Use the "High Notification" option of T-Square).